[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 95 (Tuesday, July 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1371-E1372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         DISAPPROVAL OF MOST-FAVORED-NATION TREATMENT FOR CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. GERALD D. KLECZKA

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 24, 1997

  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss whether the United 
States should continue normal trade relations with China. If I believed 
for one moment that revoking our current trade status with China would 
improve the human rights situation there and benefit American workers, 
I would oppose renewal of most-favored-nation [MFN] status. However, 
revoking MFN would only serve to make matters worse.
  To begin with, MFN is not a special privilege. It would be more 
accurate to call it ``normal trade status'' because it is the trade 
relationship our country has with 184 nations.
  If the United States were to revoke this normal trade status, China 
is likely to retaliate against United States exports by increasing 
tariffs on these products. Such retaliation would put a large number of 
U.S. workers at a disadvantage. China is the United States' fifth 
largest trading partner, with our annual exports to that country having 
quadrupled to $12 billion over the past decade. An estimated 170,000 
Americans work in jobs that produce United States exports to China.
  In my district, a number of companies, including ABB Drives and 
Rockwell [Allen-Bradley], have penetrated Chinese markets, expanding 
trade and job opportunities. In 1995, Wisconsin companies exported 
products worth $142 million to that nation, an increase of 29 percent 
over the previous year. If the United States unilaterally denies normal 
trade status to China, other countries like Japan and the members of 
the European Union will immediately replace United States exports to 
that country.
  Since none of our allies would be willing to join us in sanctioning 
China our sanctions would do the most damage to ourselves. In 1979, we 
made a similar mistake when we imposed a grain embargo upon the Soviet 
Union as punishment for the invasion of Afghanistan. What happened? The 
embargo cut off an important market for United States farmers while 
Canadian, Argentine, and European growers rushed in to fill the gap. We 
lifted the embargo in 1981 with a realization that it had had little 
impact on the Soviets. The Soviets did not get out of Afghanistan until 
years later, when the Afghans threw them out. This recent historical 
case illustrates that our unilateral sanctions wreak most of its 
punishment on one nation: ours.
  When we placed sanctions upon South Africa several years ago, they 
were effective because we had the cooperation of all our major trading 
partners. If we revoke normal trading status with China, we will be 
doing it alone--and the Europeans and Japanese will take the business 
opportunities that United States companies will now be forced to 
forego.
  Opponents of MFN renewal note that over the last several years we 
have had a growing trade deficit with China. However, the deficit 
figures show that while our trade deficit with China has increased, our 
deficit with other major Asian exporters has decreased. In other words, 
according to the Institute for International Economics, Chinese imports 
of labor-intensive consumer goods have simply replaced the imports we 
used to get from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Chinese 
production has largely displaced imports from other third-party 
nations, not United States domestic producers.
  While I continue to be concerned about the human rights situation in 
China, is there any reason to believe that we can work to improve human 
rights by severing our normal trade relations with China? Historically, 
China's treatment of its own people has always been at its worst when 
it is most isolated, like their repressive Cultural Revolution from 
1966 to 1976. By contrast, today reform in China has a tenuous 
foothold, thanks partly to our close economic engagement with that 
country. In the 2 previous years, over 39,000 Chinese students studied 
at United States universities, who will eventually return to their 
homeland having experienced American ideas of pluralism and democracy. 
In 1995, over 164,000 Chinese residents visited this country on 
business, and thousands more who do not visit here are supervised by 
American managers and work with American counterparts via phone and e-
mail on a daily basis, and thereby get a sense of our politics, our 
economy, and our personal freedoms.
  Regarding religious freedoms, a number of the missionary groups 
working on the ground in China have expressed their fears that 
revocation of MFN would hinder, not help, the cause of human rights 
there. The China Service Coordinating Office, an organization serving 
over 100 Christian organizations in service and witness there, fears 
that ending MFN would close doors in China through educational, 
cultural, and other exchanges, and cause harm to burgeoning social and 
political reforms. Similarly, Dr. Samuel Ling of the Billy Graham 
Center has called on ``evangelical Christians to think twice before 
supporting efforts aimed at revoking China's MFN trade status.''
  Our engagement has led to a number of significant human rights 
advances over the last several years. Village elections have given 
millions of rural citizens access to a more democratic process for 
choosing local officials. Exposure to international norms and legal 
systems has played a role in China's legal reform effort to broaden 
citizens' rights. Reforms include the 1997 amendments to the criminal 
procedure law which impose limits on police detention of suspected 
criminals, and the 1994 state compensation law, which allows Chinese 
citizens to sue government officials and collect damages. By 
withdrawing economically, we jeopardize future reforms by reducing the 
positive influence we can continue to have on China.
  A vote to continue MFN is not a vote in favor of the policies of the 
Chinese Government. A vote to continue our normal trade relations with 
China is a vote for an ongoing engagement which not only supports 
thousands of American jobs, but allows us to promote reform and 
democracy among the people of China.

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